Perception of an AI Teammate in an Embodied Control Task Affects Team Performance, Reflected in Human Teammates' Behaviors and Physiological Responses

TL;DR

This study shows that human-AI teams can perform worse than human-only teams in complex tasks due to disrupted dynamics and physiological stress, despite improved perception of the AI over time.

Contribution

It reveals counterintuitive negative effects of AI teammates on team performance and behavior, emphasizing the importance of human-centered AI design in collaborative tasks.

Findings

Human-AI teams performed worse than human-only teams as task difficulty increased.

AI teammate presence increased arousal and reduced engagement among human participants.

Perception of AI improved over time, but negative effects on team dynamics persisted.

Abstract

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into human teams is widely expected to enhance performance and collaboration. However, our study reveals a striking and counterintuitive result: human-AI teams performed worse than human-only teams, especially when task difficulty increased. Using a virtual reality-based sensorimotor task, we observed that the inclusion of an active human-like AI teammate disrupted team dynamics, leading to elevated arousal, reduced engagement, and diminished communication intensity among human participants. These effects persisted even as the human teammates' perception of the AI teammate improved over time. These findings challenge prevailing assumptions about the benefits of AI in team settings and highlight the critical need for human-centered AI design to mitigate adverse physiological and behavioral impacts, ensuring more effective human-AI collaboration.